


hope is a thing with feathers

by betteroffbad



Category: jonathan livingston seagull - Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-11 23:22:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17456237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betteroffbad/pseuds/betteroffbad
Summary: you are writing a story about a bird when you meet a bird.it is the bird you have been waiting for. . . or is it??





	hope is a thing with feathers

One day you are sitting in your living room downstairs  
it's day somewhere but for you it's the middle of the night  
it's the middle of the night but the clock says 3:14 AM  
you are downstairs writing fanfiction  
you started out writing regular fiction  
but between one sentence and another jonathan livingston seagull slips in 

jonathan livingston seagull is a bird  
in the book your grandad has at the cabin there are 14 pictures of birds  
you don't know which of them is jonathan  
the born-again  
the Gull Who Lived  
having read the book 14 times you know that he is sometimes called Jonathan Seagull  
sometimes Jonathan Gull  
no one really calls him Jonathan Livingston and you suspect  
maybe seagull culture is not big on middle names  
you suspect maybe the author realized that halfway through  
but didn't want to change the title  
because it was euphonoeous in his mind

the thing about jonathan livingston seagull is he's still only a bird  
he's enlightened for a bird but he's fundamentally a bird  
and when he finds himself in your lap with your hands just above him  
he begins to flap frantically  
there are feathers everywhere  
he starts to peck frantically at the undersides of your wrists 

shhhh shhhhhh you tell him you'll wake up my dad  
and even though he is still a bird  
he seems to understand you  
he puffs himself up huge and fluffy and hunkeres down into your lap  
[YOUR NAME] he says, you are the one  
you are the love I have been searching for 

now is a good time to think about your dream of flight  
you have dreamed of flight 14 times in the past 14 days  
you have dreamed of a bird who would teach you to fly  
and about whom you have certain feelings

you think maybe this bird who loves you  
is still a bird and will also shit on your nightgown  
but as if he can hear your thoughts jonathan seagull  
says, “[YOUR NAME],  
don't you know me yet?  
I am not a mere bird to shit all over the nightgown  
of the [YOUR GENDER] I love  
I am the Gull Who Lived and I am here  
to teach you to fly.” 

unfortunately it turns out  
this story is just a big stupid metaphor  
flying is a metaphor for writing about flying  
and even though jonathan birdgull is real  
you still have to write the story yourself  
so instead of walking out into the cold night  
in your nightgown or pyjama of choice and your jacket with a huge white bird beside you  
and opening your arms to the gentle wind to be lifted  
instead of giving yourself as you have in your dreams to the cold strong wind and perhaps to the bird though you're not sure how that would work  
you just sit on your same stupid butt at the same computer  
under the same huge empty useless sky  
in the middle of the night in the hairy pit of the morning

and write I went out into the cold night  
as though it was a dream  
but it wasn't a dream  
but it felt like a dream  
but it wasn't a dream 

round and round in circles until dawn's grey greasy light finds you  
and your dad's automatic coffee maker kicks on and starts burbling  
and your dad starts knocking around in the bedroom with the radio playing  
103.3 WEGL The Eagle  
Soar With Rock's Greatest Legends  
and you think oh shit  
how do I explain jonathan  
because you're not sure if he can actually speak [YOUR LANGUAGE]  
or if you had a telepathic connection  
you look down at your lap and there's nothing there  
not even a grubby feather  
not even a bird mite 

you have been up all night writing and you never even got to the part where you fly  
because even in your own fic  
you are terrible at fic  
jonathan that was no help at all you tell the bird  
who was probably never there in the first place


End file.
